Bitter
by Faintly Falling
Summary: First part of the Winter trilogy. OC-focused. Tom left someone behind when he died. Someone who's...not very happy...with this whole situation.


Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

-Richard III, Act one, Scene one.

It's cold and that makes sense because it's fucking _December_. The kind of day that Tom would have hated. It's overcast, gray and cloudy, and the only thing that would make this more of a stereotypical funeral is if it were raining. Sebs finds it appropriate; it would be too cruel if the sun finally came out for him after he was gone. Sebs is almost surprised it didn't-it would be too, too perfect if Tom managed to piss the sun off in addition to everyone else. There's snow on the ground, the wimpy powdery kind that only makes everything slick and wet. It's cold wet dust and Sebs wants to kick it just for being there. He's considered the assholeishness of making some poor bastard dig a grave in the ground that's frozen solid; the funeral home suggested cremation, especially since Tom had been nonreligious but Sebs had refused. Tom shouldn't have to burn twice. There's not much to bury, just some charred bones, remains. God, he's _remains_ now. Sebs looks at the hole again and is glad someone has to suffer on Tom's behalf.

No rites, no eulogy, no words. _God, what could they possibly say?_ Just gravediggers and a coffin. Do they know anything at all about the person inside it? Furtive glances and solemnity just go along with being a gravedigger, to say the least of the sheer oddness of Sebs' request, but Sebs can't help but question. He feels slightly incriminated, like he's doing something wrong but that realization only makes him feel more guilt; Tom shouldn't be some dirty little secret. He feels a sick thrill when he wonders what they'd do if they knew they were burying the man who caused one of the most bizarre double homicides in recent history. Spit on it probably, at least. Many other people from the area, the company would like to do so much worse. He's followed the editorials in the paper, the articles online. Those are the last vestiges of Tom's existence, an article in the paper and a last name they got wrong.

If these were any kind of normal circumstances Sebs would feel uncomfortable standing here like this but right now he could care less, watching scoops of dirt swallow what's left of his friend like a solemn ritual, refusing to look away. It's a challenge, not just to the gravediggers but also to himself. _This is reality. This is happening._ He feels a responsibility to Tom, to see this to the end for his sake. _Sebs_ can treat him with dignity, even if no one else will. Correction, this _was _Tom. Now it's just a corpse.

He had gotten the call three days after it happened, at work, of all places. Someone asking him if he knew Tom, telling him that Tom is dead (_and_ _Tom is a murderer_). Granted, it had been a while since he had actually talked to Tom, a couple of weeks, maybe a month. He hadn't thought too much of it, just assumed they were in the downswing of their cycle. They'd reunite eventually, they always did. As a matter of fact, Tom's birthday was coming up and Sebs had planned on giving him a call, getting together, maybe going out or something. He had been missing the time they spent together, as he usually did when they were separated for so long.

He forces his eyes shut and then opens them again, stopping the thought in its tracks.

According to the police, attempts to get in contact with Tom's family had yielded no results. Sebs had been his only emergency contact. Sebs might have been touched by that fact if the situation wasn't so horrible. Tom's family couldn't make less of a difference to Sebs; he didn't know anything about them and Tom didn't share. Either they just weren't around anymore (which made him feel even worse for Tom) or they couldn't be bothered (which made him feel bad and pissed). He's in a way, he's almost glad it's just him. It's too, too perfect-this moment, this pain is all his.

He jams his fists in his pockets, tired of pretending that the cold isn't bothering him. There's another chill that's internal right now but there's not much he can do about that.

Tom had apparently had some sort of nervous breakdown, something that apparently involved kidnapping and murder in that godforsaken place where he worked. Sebs had heard Tom complaining about it more frequently; the dark, the quiet. He'd shown no inclination to leave, however, so Sebs hadn't pushed him. He'd seemed okay with it earlier on, a bit bored perhaps, but he got to do his reading, nobody monitored him and Sebs had always figured that it must beat working with a bunch of pompous schmucks.

Clearly not.

The last couple of days were a blur of paperwork and phone calls and waiting. The police had forced the body on him as soon as it was released, directing him to cheap funeral homes and impressing on him the need to make arrangements for its removal from the morgue. 'What?' he had been tempted to say at the time, 'Is he getting any less dead?' No, he sure as hell wasn't. To say that seeing the charred remains of his friend had been a shock was so far beyond an understatement, it wasn't even funny. The police and the morticians had warned up and down that it was horrific, that it might be too much for him. _Why are you worried about me? Tom's the one who's dead._

He might be proud that he hadn't thrown up if it wasn't because he had been too numb to react at all at the time.

It had been easy, too easy, to be flippant, to let some tiny part of his brain tell him that the indistinguishable piece of black carbon…that it wasn't Tom who had turned into something Sebs has only ever seen in textbooks and documentaries about the Holocaust (_and that horrible smell…)_. But now, box in the ground and the dirt getting higher, there's a finality that's impossible to deny.

He lowers his head and braces his back against the imaginary breeze.

Even if he had something to say to Tom right now, he can't.

He can't say anything to Tom anymore.

Because Tom is dead.

The gravediggers are finishing. They're using a fucking backhoe to do this and Sebs couldn't have been more startled when he first saw the thing. He hasn't been to a lot of funerals. Some family members when he was too young to pay much attention, the wakes of some people from work he hadn't known too well. Funerals still make him think of Poe and Dickensian sextants cackling over spades and dimly flickering lanterns. This big metal behemoth is clunky and impersonal. It looks so out of place there, capable of crushing the comparably fragile gravestones. It screeches and grinds the harsh sounds of dull metal on dull metal, penetrating the would-be silence with its forceful heaving rhythm.

It's really fucking annoying but it's hard to express your frustration to a machine.

He couldn't make eye contact with the guys inside if he tried and he's pretty sure they like it that way. Sebs isn't exactly sure he wants to either. He wonders how much they could possibly care about this, this job (_all __**he**__ is is a job) _sitting above it all, pulling their levers just as mechanically as the machine moves.

They're up there and he's down here.

They finish up and exit the thing; half-assedly patting the top of the grave (_that's what it is, it's a fucking grave_) with spades to make sure the dirt is packed down. They get back into the thing and drive it back to wherever and just like that, Sebs is alone.

Good.

He steps forward uncertainly, his movements slow and jerky. After some hesitation, he finally steps onto the mountain of earth like he's stepping up to home plate. Or, rather, the pitcher's mound. He feels oddly deliberate, like this is what he was supposed to do all along. He looks down because that's what seems the most appropriate, even though he's well aware that out of all the things that Tom isn't, 'encapsulated in a brick that's planted in the ground' is number one right now.

Well, 'alive' is number one, really, but that goes without saying.

It's a flat slab of granite, rectangular and black, with a metal plaque inset. Names and dates. He couldn't think of anything else to put on there and anyway it seemed presumptuous to try to define someone for the rest of time when they could no longer speak for themselves.

Even if he was the only one who cared.

The only one who would ever care.

Maybe that was it. The stone was mostly for his own benefit and besides; there was no way to define Tom. He was just…Tom.

_Was. _

He'd picked the somewhat unique shape because it was distinct (god knows Tom wouldn't want to be faceless even in death) and because it looked the least like a gravestone. That made it a little less painful somehow. It's not that he's kidding himself; this is permanent and he's becoming increasingly reminded of that with each passing minute, but this looks less ominous and more…what? Dignified? Imposing? It was still distinct; the black stands out against the grays, whites and difficult-to-believe pinks….

His thoughts are going circular again.

He's trying to distract himself.

Fuck.

He's seen movies and shit; he knows the kind of thing you're supposed to say, that there are words for this. Well, for dead people. Not for _this_. Not for your friend going extra crispy after committing a kidnapping and a double homicide.

He lowers his head and pinches the bridge of his nose and sees muddled memories swimming in his mind. All he can think about is the way they'd make each other laugh and the way they'd sometimes make each other yell and he can't reconcile any of that with a phone call and a charred corpse and his friend in the ground.

He feels something inside him start to break and, as a matter of fact, he could really do with breaking something right now.

He exhales, and then scrunches his shoulders tighter. He can't stare at this thing anymore, this stupid hunk of rock that's the only thing left now…

He follows the line of gravestones, not sure where he's going. He can't stand still a minute longer. He takes in the shapes; the pyramids, the squares, and, yes, even the infamous rounded-top. It's an old graveyard and while most of the stones near Tom are new, the aged ones dominate in the back. A century's worth of history, all carved in stone. The first couple of steps were prickled with the childish, irrational fear of hands coming out of the ground, feeling slightly sacrilegious as his footfalls fell too heavily on the ground where he was all too aware that bodies rested below the surface. _Rested_. That was one way of putting it.

So many lives…over.

His eyes linger on names, some generic, some familiar and some unpronounceable. He reads the epithets. 'Mother…father…daughter…son…most loved…best…dearest…' Sentiments that mean something to the people left here on earth, sentiments that were agreed upon in advance that the people who come to see them are agreeing with still. He's never felt so alone. He ponders the engravings, hearts and flowers, sometimes a cameo-style portrait, even a horse on one of them. Laser-sharp, machine-drilled perfect. Too perfect, impersonal even. The closer he gets to the old ones he can see the difference; the lines are wider, rougher, the shapes broader but somehow more detailed-looking, as if the lack of fine-tuning forced the maker to be more selective in picking just the right details to create the desired effect. He felt more comfortable over here than by those glossy, shiny, well-made things. These look sadder, more real.

Some of them are broken at the edges, and worn smooth from age. The further back he goes, the harder they become to read. What the weather hasn't beaten out of them, some kind of moss or dirt is covering. Even the engravings and embellishments have been ground down. It depresses him. Someone's work gone to waste, for nothing. The last records of someone's existence, gone, faded into obscurity. There's a little stone, half the size of the others, whose symbol is still comprehensible. He crouches down to get a better look. It's a skull with wings. Some part of his mind reaches backwards and makes a grab for the association, from some history class that must have been ages ago. A dead child. More specifically, a dead baby.

He brushes some of the earthen matter away. It was indeed a dead baby, didn't even have a first name.

'Baby Mathews'.

Must have been stillborn or died soon after birth. There's something on there that's hard to make out, about love and innocence. Funny how you can become so attached to someone before you really know them.

He feels like he's breaking some taboo and redirects his gaze somewhere else. It settles on the big obelisk-style thing in the middle of the cemetery. He takes a moment to amuse himself with the phallic implications of such a monument. _Prove to everybody that you've got the biggest dick in the whole graveyard_. He moves closer to examine it and has a bit of difficulty placing his feet on the awkwardly angled hill that the burial mound sits on.

Six family members seem to be listed under the thing, long European last name that bespeaks of 'old money'. A bunch of markers and stones with matching fonts sit beneath it, looking like they haven't been touched in years. Seems the line ended here. He raises his eyes back up to the big stone dick and he suddenly sees beyond it. Someone's standing at Tom's grave.

It's her.

It's _her_.

He recognizes her from the picture in the paper. He remembers when he first saw it, thinking he'd never seen eyes so cold, so haunted and they weren't any different now. She was staring at the thing like she was trying to burn a hole in it. Her entire face was twisted in wrath and a muscle in her jaw is working like it's too tight, like she wants to open her mouth and say something but she can't.

She's not the only one.

He feels a surge of anger towards her, cold fury bubbling in his stomach. He wants to yell, to shake her, to scare the centered focused look off of her face. If his life doesn't make sense, hers sure as hell shouldn't. She knows exactly who Tom is, to her and he wants to tell her she's wrong, he wants to tell her that Tom couldn't have been the same Tom when he did what he did, that something must have been very, very wrong and, at the same time, he's afraid of the idea that she might just know Tom much better than he must've, could've.

He wants to ask her what, exactly, happened. He wants to know how someone who was occasionally brought to near tears over animal cruelty was capable of killing another person, let alone two. He wants to know how a guy who was so painfully shy around chicks that Sebs often wondered if he had made it out of puberty yet was capable of what sounded like attempted rape. He wants to know, maybe irrationally, why, _why _she had to kill him.

He hates her for taking away his best friend. Only friend.

And at the same time, and he knows this is ludicrous; part of him wants to apologize. Not like the way he might apologize to some bystander for the annoyances he and Tom would create, though the cynical part of him just wants to shake his head and mutter "'another fine mess'". He understands that she's the victim here (_maybe they're both victims of Tom_). He wants to feel bad, he wants to regret the trauma of whatever happened though he can't help wishing that if someone had to die, it wouldn't have been Tom.

He wants to ask her.

He wants to talk to her.

But he can't, he won't.

So he watches. He watches her wage her internal war with whatever she's trying to say to Tom's body. Watches her shift occasionally, whether out of nervousness or discomfort, watches her face change as her thoughts shift accordingly. She has to keep brushing her hair out of her face (clearly he wasn't imagining the wind). He watches her for what feels like hours, trying to guess what she's saying, too afraid to break the spell.

He wonders how she knows to come here, but he realizes that burial information is public more often than not.

Whatever it is she's trying to do, she eventually deems it satisfactory and finishes. Maybe she's bothered by the wind. In any case she leaves, swiftly and efficiently, (he gets the impression that's how she does everything), and he's alone again.

He doesn't know how long he's been there when he becomes all too aware of the sounds of the quiet. That damned wind is getting louder and stronger. He hears a bird chirping somewhere to his right and turns to see one perched on top of a headstone. A sparrow, or maybe a robin…one of those small birds. Isn't it supposed to be a raven on a headstone? Or at least a crow.

He's getting somewhat tired of being up close and personal with the giant stone dick so he heads back where he came from. He's one row over from Tom's when he hears footsteps and chatter. He pretends to be contemplating the veteran's plaque on a nearby stone while he listens.

"This is it? He's the one who did that all that shit?"

"Yeah, looks so normal, doesn't it? I wonder if he his family did this for him."

"I sure as hell wouldn't. I wouldn't claim someone like that."

"I don't understand why a murderer gets a Christian burial. What kind of world are we living in?"

_A world where people stay out of things that don't concern them._

"Excuse me?" One of them says. Both of the women are facing him now. They look to be in their forties or fifties.

He must have said that out loud. Shit.

He deliberately turns to face them

"Yes?" He's careful to sound. _I can make you the asshole here._ _Wait, you are the asshole here_…

"Are you defending this guy? This sicko?" She cuts right to the point.

He needs to be careful.

"All I'm saying is that you don't know what really happened." He maintains what he hopes is a casual tone.

"What's there to know? He hurt people; he killed people, seemingly for no good reason. He was a monster."

"He was a person. He was…a person." Sebs hears his voice crack and it makes him feel weak and he hates that, _hates that._

"You got some screwed up priorities." She shakes her head and walks away with her friend, back to their normal world, muttering about crazies.

She may not be muttering. There's a rather unpleasant buzz in Sebs' head that might be drowning out the words.

He looks down, because where the hell else is he going to look and the thoughts in his mind dull because he has nothing left to say. He doesn't know how long it is before he hears voices again.

"It's over here, I think. See the dirt?"

"I can't see shit. Do you think they've buried it yet?"

"I kinda hope not. Didn't the motherfucker, like catch on fire? Blow up or some shit?"

"Really? Maybe. All I know is, dude lost his shit. Lost his fuckin' mind and killed everybody at his job or some shit."

"Can't say I blame him. I'd get rid of those bastards I work with too if I knew I could get away with it."

"But you might end up burnt up like this guy."

"True."

Sebs can hear them get closer, not directly behind them but close.

"I think it's right-"

"OH SHIT!"

Sebs had turned around just as their flashlight was turned on him. He had felt his pupils burn but he didn't blink. He glared at the pair, hoping he looked formidable. Based on the looks their faces were wearing, he did.

"Shit, we weren't trying to do nothing, man…"

They were young, male. College kids, or high school. They all looked the same; kids were looking younger every year. Thrill-seekers. He half-expects to catch the smell of weed.

"Get out." He says it in a flat, no-nonsense tone devoid of emotion.

"We really weren't doing anything, really."

He can't tell which one; they're shining the goddamn flashlight in his face. They're probably trying to blind him.

Sebs hears a hint of anxiousness in his voice.

They're scared of him. Whether it's his presence as an adult or the fact that he's lurking in a graveyard, they're scared of him.

"Get. Out."

"Come on, dude," one says to the other, trying to seem like he's in charge, "He's serious."

They shuffle off, no doubt looking for another social norm to violate.

Sebs hadn't noticed before the boys pointed it out but it had gotten dark. Very dark. He hadn't even noticed the streetlights come on. He must have been there all day. The moon is high and he can hear the sounds of the crowd in the distance.

He hears bells and cheering coming from far away.

"Happy fuckin' New Year."

He can't stand here all night. But he almost can't leave, it's late and anyway, where would he go? He wants closure. He wants…something. He moves over to the tree in the corner that he had noticed earlier. As he gets closer, he sees the pile of broken headstones. The rejects' corner. He slumps against the tree and slides to the ground, too numb from the cold to be bothered by the frigid sting of the snow.

His head circulates the events of the day.

Tom is gone.

He's really gone.

He stares at the shadowy outline of the graves, feeling his mind grow foggy.

Sebs wakes up with his face next to a headstone, unsure of how he got there. His back feels wet(moving a hand to the small of his back proves his suspicions) and someone else is moving around somewhere to his right…

He stands with difficulty; his coat is heavy and sodden from the snow and he feels an uncomfortable stiffness in his joints. He finally pulls himself to his feet and sees the person whose presence he was only guessing at. Some kind of caretaker, judging by his clothes and equipment. He's making paths in the snow; rather pointless considering it's half melted and patchy now.

The morning brightness makes the place look bleak and dull, static rather than holy, forbidding any of the contemplations of the day before. The spell's broken.

The caretaker gives him a slight glance but doesn't stop what he's doing. Maybe he's seen stranger things.

Sebs takes one last look around and makes his way towards the gate, heading out into the light.


End file.
